The Confessionals - Encountering The Squatchella

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

In this episode, Blurry Creatures, Ninjas Are Butterflies, Expanded Perspectives and The Confessionals join forces to discuss the inception of Squatchella, a unique festival celebrating the world of paranormal podcasts. They get into the quirky beginnings of this concept, how it came to life, and the spirit of collaboration among different podcasters. The conversation is light-hearted and filled with humorous anecdotes, showcasing the camaraderie and creativity within the paranormal podcast community. As they share their personal experiences and the evolution of their shows, the discussion becomes a fascinating exploration of the unseen and mysterious forces they cover in their podcasts.Get Tickets: squatchella.comFisher Center: https://youtu.be/4qTaHIHG7JMBlurry Creatures: blurrycreatures.com Ninjas Are Butterflies: sundaycool.comExpanded Perspectives: expandedperspectives.com

Merkel Media Welcome to this Friday pop-up show, everybody. We have a good one here for you. We had gotten together with the blurry creature guys, the Ninjas or Butterflies guys, and the expanded perspective guys, and we had a good hour and a half conversation

about all the weird things we've covered on our shows. And we also talk about our upcoming event, Squatchella, which is going to be hosted in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 3rd. And if you want your tickets for Squachella before they get sold out, you want to go to squachella.com to get your tickets because it is going to be an awesome event. We're going to be at the Fisher Center at Belmont University. And this Fisher Center is absolutely majestic. There is a link in the description of this episode. You can click on it. It's a video showing you how beautiful the center is where we're going to be doing our live shows in person on stage for the audience. I'm super excited about this. And also, we haven't talked about it on this recording. So I want to let you guys know now.

We do have the VIP ticket option, which will allow you to have a lunchtime hangout with me and all the other shows backstage. There's going to be photos, food, get things signed all for an hour and a half with all the podcasts if you're VIP. But this is going to be an awesome event, whether you're VIP or not. This is really a once-in-a-lifetime event that we've never done before. None of us have ever done this before. We're super excited about it, and we hope you guys enjoy it who come. But I hope you do enjoy this conversation I had with these guys talking about all the weird stuff we've covered on our shows. All right, so here we are.

We got four podcasts on this episode, and we're talking about something cool. It started in my backyard. I called Tony, and I said, you know what, Tony? I played a lot of music festivals back in the day. And there was a ton of bands on it. What if we did something with a bunch of paranormal podcasts, and we had some fun name for it? And then a couple days later, I was like, what about Squatchella? And Squatcella is happening.

I was born. Is that how it happened, Tony? Or am I have fuzzy memories here? I think you pitch Squatcella on the phone to me. And I was like, sounds good. No, you were pitching it to me on the phone. I was in my drive while I yelled to my wife and say, hey, I'm not overbooked, right? And she's like, you're absolutely overbooked.

I said, sounds good. Let's do it. And that's how it started. Yeah. It's awesome. The music festivals are fun. when, you know, back in the band days, you know, you get as many people on one show as possible, and it was an all-day event, you sweated. You spent like $18 on a bottle of water, but

you had a lot of fun. But what about all these podcasts to talk about the big guy, Sasquatch, you know, and all the weird paranormal stuff out there? And so we have four podcasts, at least, on Squatchella so far. We don't know what the special guests are. We've been telling everyone, it's Joe Rogan, so. I was under the impression that we had a special guest. This is the old news to me. But I guess introduce your podcast and tell us your weirdest story. We'll do this camp style, you know, when you're like, go to camp and you have to introduce your name and like your favorite yogurt or something, you know?

Yeah. Should I go first? Since, yes. Go, Tony. Go, Tony, go. Names Tony Merkel, host of the Confessionals podcast. And started the show seven years ago and focusing on. people's experiences with the strange and unusual. So we just sit down, had that conversation.

When I first started the show, I didn't know how to, I didn't know how to do anything. And I thought I was going to have to be like a journalist. So I was trying to sit down and do pre-written questions and like, you know, draw out all the information. And as soon as I threw out the window, just sat down and started having conversations with people. And the show, I think, got dramatically better. So that's what we do. We sit down, talk to people about their experiences and their thoughts on all the strange stuff. And as the years have gone on, this show has, has, gotten crazier because I have come to understand that reality is way, way, way stranger than I've ever imagined. And, you know, as far as crazy stories goes for the show, that's like, ask me

which kid is my favorite, you know, because we, like, we have a lot. So I just, when you brought that up, Nate, as to as a talking point, I went to my YouTube channel and I just looked up as like my most popular shows. And the second most popular one is one of my ones that I jumped to right away. I called a Joshua Tree Portal Colt. And I can't even like go into the entire story. It was almost a four hour podcast. But essentially this guy, he moved from Atlanta to L.A.

He's in the film industry. Works for Netflix shows. And he was shortly after he was in L.A., him and his roommate went to a bar one night, got drinks. And when his roommate got up and went to the bathroom, this other guy came over, sat down with him and just started talking, became friends. And his roommate comes back, they're all talking. And the bar's starting to shut down. And the guy's like, hey, I know there's other place that's open. You guys want to come and hang out.

And they're like, yeah, sure. So they go to this other location. And as they're walking up to it, there was like all these like goth looking people walking in. And his roommate just kind of got weirded out. He's like, I don't think I want to go in there. and the guy that was on the show with me, his name's James, and he's just like, well, I'll see you back at the apartment. You know, this dude is going to give me a ride back home after we're done hanging out. So he goes in, and that experience there was strange, like a lot of weird people and weird things happening around him.

But he didn't really think much of it because James is the kind of person. He doesn't want to prejudge anything. He just kind of really just wants to live life and just have the experience and see what happens. they're in the car heading back to his apartment. And this guy, I forget what we called him on the show, this call Mark here. This guy gets a text message from his friends saying that there is a party in Joshua Tree. And he's like, do you want to go to this party in Joshua Tree?

At this time, it's like 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. And James is like, no, man, I kind of just want to go home. I'm tired. Long story short, he talks him into going out to Joshua Tree. This is a Friday night, I believe. They arrive in Joshua Tree. they say five, six o'clock in the morning, and it's an entire weekend thing. So they spend the entire day there. When he gets there, shortly after he gets there, some guy comes over to him,

puts a bracelet on him that says VIP. And not everybody had VIP. Only James and like one or two other people had a bracelet that said VIP on it. And, you know, he's just hanging out, chilling for the day. They're having drinks and just talking. And throughout the day, you get familiar with the amount of people that are there. and the surroundings. There's this one girl there who seemed like as the day went on, she got more and more anxious with anxiety. And she was saying things like,

I can't be here tonight. I can't do that again. I can't be whatever happened last night. And he's like, what are you talking about? She was very vague. She wouldn't tell him. And so he's going through the day and he has to go to the bathroom.

Now, I called the show Joshua Tree Portal Cult. There was a very strong urge in me to call it the Portopopoe, portal because it all changed when he went into the porta potty. But he goes into this portopati and he just takes a leak. It's not very long. He comes back out and when he walks out, he said there was noticeable difference in the surroundings. He said he was still there, but there was a lot more people there than there were just two minutes ago.

And again, James is a real laid back kind of guy. He's like, oh, whatever, you know, and he just kind of goes throughout his day. So throughout the day, I guess everybody was really excited about the two DJs that were showing up. There's these two, like I guess twin DJs or something. And when the DJs showed up, everybody got real excited. They start setting up for the party at night. And at some point through that process, there's this other guy who told James that, hey, man, listen, I know you don't got a whole lot. You just came here randomly.

This is your bed. you know, you can sleep on it. It's for you this weekend. And he's like, oh, that's great, man. Thanks, you know. So he has his place to sleep that night after the party. He's excited. And the party starts.

They go into this tent that they set up. And the DJs are going. And when he goes in, he starts seeing people physically transform, demonic entities that I don't think he was identifying as that in the moment, walking around him. what you could only really call vampires. I think he even said people

with yellow eyes or something like that. There's a lot of weird things. And he's like, I don't know what the heck's going on here. He's like, this is tripping me out. He goes outside and I'm skipping a lot of information here. A lot.

But he goes outside where the guy who brought him is out there with another guy. And he's like, hey, you know, is this place like, tripping you guys out and they're like, hey, man, you need to just rest, relax and stuff. And they kind of walk them over to this one truck that has like this bunk in it. And it wasn't, I don't think it was his bunk that they gave him initially. Actually, it might have been either way, they said, why don't you just go in there and rest? And so he starts to crawl in and he realizes

if they close the door behind him, it locks from the outside. And he felt real uncomfortable with that. So he kind of like hops out and he's like, no, I'm good. Because they started walking away and he walks over and they're like, aren't you going to take it now? And he's like, no, I'm just going to, I'm going to ride it out. And they kind of whispered to each other in each other's ears. And they're just like, all right. And they just go back into the tent. And at this point, he goes over to the guy who said to him about the bunk and everything.

He starts talking to him. And the guy's being real rude to him. Like he doesn't want to talk to him anymore. And at some point around this time, this is where it gets trippy. the tent shoots straight up into the air and a green portal opens up underneath it and people are flying

up in the air and he's freaking out, he runs away he runs into a group of people that had, were dressed in black cloaks, doing some kind of seance and one of the people started laughing at him saying,

you have no idea what's about to happen to you. And he starts running the opposite direction and a lot of other things started happening to him. that seemed to present this idea that at some point while he was during the day there, he went through some kind of dimensional shift.

And we've experienced this on the show several times. And it's funny because when I introduce my show to people nowadays, I'm like, where do I even start this rabbit hole with you? But I've experienced several times with people on the show where it seems like not on purpose, but accidentally they go through dimensional shifts. don't even realize it. Like they, everything seems like normal around it,

but there's little small things that are off that looking back on it, it's like they were on some kind of like dimensional bridge between realms almost. And I think that's what kind of happened with him because at some point, he's trying to run away from this party through the desert. And he's, it was like there's forces that like he was pushing through trying to get out of this. And he actually winds up going through the desert. A lot of trippy things happen to him there,

the ground opening up around him. he finally makes his way to a hospital and is sitting in a waiting room asking for for them. He basically asked them for a charge or to charge his phone. And he's charging his phone. And oh, by the way, during this whole thing, his phone stopped working. He couldn't call 911. He couldn't call for help. It like was down.

It didn't start operating again until he was at the hospital. But so he goes through this whole ordeal. and he has a voicemail on his phone and it's from the guy who brought him there and the guy's just like, hey man, you kind of just disappeared on us. We don't know what happened to you.

Are you good? We don't know where you're at. And the voicemail should have ended there, but the guy forgot to hang up the phone. And when he puts the phone down, he hears this conversation between the two guys saying, do you think he knows what happened? Do you think he remembers what happened and all this other stuff?

like basically is seeming like they're trying to deceive him. And that was, I don't know if that sounds trippy to people, but it is honestly one of the most trippy experiences we've had on the show because of all the things that have been able to be validated through this story, after I released it, I had never heard of crazy bonker things happening in Joshua Tree. After I released it,

I had several people contact me with similar stories. One guy actually came on the show, his name was James as well and he was in the military and he actually had an experience at this very location years before and then there's another guy who contacted me who lost his mother and decided to go hiking in Joshua Tree to just blow off steam he goes missing for four days and the news covered it that you know man goes missing in Joshua Tree all that stuff he sent me the video clips of it and they searched this area and he wasn't there And then all of a sudden they're searching four days later and he's there.

And they're asking, they're like, where did you go? Like we don't know what happened. And he's like, I was here. And they're like, you weren't here when we came through. And he's like, and what he said to me in the email, I don't know if he told them this. He said, I was there, but I wasn't totally there. I was also somewhere else. Like it was like a mirror world.

And he said that there was black cloaked entities that would walk up to him and talk to him in a different language while he was. there for four days. And so something trippy happens in Joshua Tree. I got plenty of stories that have happened in the Joshua Tree area since I released this show. But yeah, Joshua Tree Portal Colt, Episode 512, is probably

one of my favorite trippy episodes we've done. Yeah, it gets wild. It reminds me of music festivals. Every time you went into a warp tour, Port-a-potty, you came out, things were weird, too. Come out and seeing a lot of vampires. That's why you

to own use portopodies. Because I've always said that. It made me think of like that those Asian game shows where someone walks into a portopati and then they roll up like a shipping container that has like a bunch of dudes in there like at a conference in a conference meeting. And then someone walks out and they're like in a meeting like somewhere else. They're like, wait. They go back in the porta potty.

Yeah, exactly. I remember those portopodies were like sought after band band dudes would fight to get into them in the morning before they got soiled by the rest of the, the rest of the crew out there. Yeah, because before it entered the mirror realm, because after so many times people use it, it just creates his own dimension, I think, from the fumes,

the chemicals. Tony, what's interesting about that is when it made me think at the end, what you were talking about with the guy in Joshua Tree, it sounds like a little bit, like some of the things that David Politis covers are missing four and one. Like, you have people that just disappear and then all of the areas are covered

and searched, and then they kind of show back in that area. too. I wonder, you know, we've kind of hypothesized a few times in the show about there being UFO involvement and Politis actually has that film, missing form and won the UFO connection. But the dimensional idea is really fascinating that they could sort of slip into some other other place. We've talked about Bigfoot as well in that in that case where there's a little kid that travels like, I forget how many miles, eight miles over these two mountain ranges and ends up instead a bear took them, right? So you have these, but that's a fascinating idea.

that sort of you slip out of this dimension into somewhere else, then you kind of come back and you come back in the same place everyone's looked for you. I mean, like, you talk about people's experiences with certain things, and let's just keep it out in nature and the missing 401 stuff. Like, people talk about how the quiet, the woods just go deaf. It's just completely quiet. And, you know, a lot of times people talk about, oh, lots of predator are in the area, and that's why everything goes quiet.

And I just had this conversation with Wes last night from Sasquatch Chronicles. And he and I were talking about this very thing. And he said to me that, you know, he's been hunting. I've never been hunting in my life. But he's been hunting. You're Tennessee, Tony, now. So everything's changing. Yeah, well, I got two pigs in my backyard and be processing soon.

So, you know, is that hunting? I don't know. I've kind of cornered them for a year long term. If you do it blindfolded, it's hunting. Perfect. Okay. I'll just make sure if it clears back a little bit. But yeah, I mean, like, what he talked about the, the environment shift in, in the quiet down and how a lot of times people talk about, you know, the predator idea.

And, you know, maybe, and this is, I think, me talking more than anybody else, but maybe it's not necessarily that a predator is in the area and that's why I think it's quiet. maybe you're experiencing some type of dimensional shift. A lot of times people have these experiences when everything gets quiet. It's unnaturally quiet. And if it's just a predator in the area, like that doesn't, like the way people describe it at least, I don't think that happens when a bear's in the area, when a cougars in an area. Like it's like a pin drop. And maybe it does, but I think that there's a strong possibility that, you know,

along the lines of dimensional shifts and stuff, maybe that's what people are experiencing with the missing 401 stuff. David Politis talks about this very thing and how if you have this experience where everything gets quiet and the environment changes around you to stop walking. And if you're with somebody to sit your butt down the ground with your back against each other and wait it out. Don't move. Let it pass.

And so to me, that says that there could be some kind of dimensional shift happening. and we talk to people about a lot of this kind of stuff and how even through lucid dreaming you can accidentally astral project. Well, when you're astral projecting, that happens in another realm. And people have experiences where they don't mean to do it. It just happens. I had a guy in my studio here two months ago who accidentally, through a lucid dream,

projected to my house and accurately described how my job. driveway is, what my house looks like, he drew my house for me. And like, there was a whole thing with that. Maybe that's the weirdest story. I don't know. Unless he's a stalker, then that's not just weird. I've done my best to verify it. I'm 99% sure he isn't. And I do tell him when I talk to him on the phone, if you're stalking me, bro, we have a problem. Well, that's, you know, people who have like near-death experiences. And then they say after the near-death experiences, then they get thrown into the astral a lot and you know that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's the most bizarre some of the more bizarre stories we've heard on our show too but speaking of

speaking of the woods and hunting we've got our boys and expanded perspectives who I mean I feel like you guys are more of a hunting show you guys could have a massive hunting show but you also do a paranormal show as well and uh tell us tell us some some weird stories you've heard on your podcast okay yeah I think probably the wildest story that I've heard, because we've heard a lot of wild stories. As you guys know, when you start doing a show, the bigger you get more and more stories start coming your way. Like in the beginning, we'd have to dig for them. But now they just have to discard.

How long have you guys been to discard? How long have you been to? Almost 11 years every week, two shows a week for almost 11 years. And you guys are still friends. Yeah, we're best friends. We grew up. I've known since the sixth grade. I still lived probably 400 yards from him.

catty corner across the park. We hunt on the same deer leased together. We do everything together. Our kids grew up together. You guys don't go up there to fish. No, it's like broke back mountain. We camp out and hang out and we snuggle in our sleeping bags. Kiss each other in night.

You don't do that with your friends? You don't do that with your friends? Obviously, I don't know every time we go hunting and just wake up in a porter potty the next morning. I don't know. Tony, you want to go hunting with us? Yeah. Our first plan night, that's the night's plans for the first night when we get there in August. So that's perfect.

I guess I'm bringing the Porterbody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we got into podcasting because I work for myself and I'm in a car all day by myself. And when Cam, he used to work for the municipality around here. And he was in his car all the time by himself. And, you know, when he listen to radio, it's just the same songs on a loop over and over.

And then if you listen to sports talk, it's just everybody crying. about the local team or it got real boring and so he was like do you know what a podcast is and this was back in the day where the iPod looked like a big cigarette lighter like it didn't even have a screen on it you'd have to go through iTunes you'd have to find what you wanted there wasn't that many shows you'd have to download it and then we would listen to it and he would listen to it and we'd call each other all giddy and like man what did you think about that story and much like Nate had an epiphany about squachella one day we were in the backyard and we're like why don't we try to podcast So in the beginning we had to collect gear.

We didn't know how to do it. There wasn't that many shows out there even doing it. And when we tell people what we were doing, we'd have to say like internet radio because nobody knew what podcasting meant. And we didn't think it would go anywhere. So we were just kind of doing it as a hobby, but it just slowly started building.

And here we are, you know, 11 years later. But I think for me, the craziest story I've heard is Cam's friend that had the siding with the little people. Yeah. If you want to talk about the Little Hunter. Yeah. So I've got a, I haven't seen him in a while.

And I, like I said, I call him Doc. I've hunted with him. I've been on this place before. It's down in South Texas. It's down along the southwest Texas border as you get down into Laco, Zona and all that is you're making your way over into Mexico. This dude is a no-no. He's, the easiest way I always tell everybody is he's a construction contractor is what he's always done. So he was no BS about anything.

He's an old-school guy. He's, I think, about to sell the business. He's an older dude, never really into this kind of stuff. And when he found out, of course, his wife found out about us doing the show and all that it kind of led to this. And one day, we're all hanging out and she's like, you're going to have to tell him. And he starts telling me a story that starts out as it almost feels almost like he's pulling my leg. And as it gets in, you start getting more and more to where you're like, this dude's not playing. Like he didn't even want to talk about it.

He ended up having an encounter witnessing more than once. 18 inch tall Native Americans. They were moving around. He found the first story that it talks about is there was a, well, it looks like a water trough, a concrete water trough that's buried in the ground. So it was poured that way for the wildlife out there. So it's because it's, you know, it's hot and dry, this whole thing. So there's havelina, there's turkey, there's a white-tail deer.

There's a lot of this out there. So it was poured. So you can walk in there and it looks like powder around the sides of this in-ground water trough because everything comes to it. He said he was up there one day and there were what he thought were toddler tracks, but they were little tiny footprints. And he could tell like little human footprints. So he freaks out.

He thinks, is there a kid out here? Like what's going on? He starts looking. The tracks lead off into the grass and that's it. And he gets real eerie, creepy feeling. Fast forward. There's some things go missing around the deer camp. Stuff turns up all the time, little pieces of stuff missing that you wouldn't think

anything of. Nothing major, like the cap off of like a rattle can, a spray paint can cap's gone, or a socket's missing or little things like that's gone, easily misplaced. Jump into, it's like around the rut. He's up in the back part of the time. It's cold weather this time. He's glassing over into this huge valley back behind him. And he sees what he thinks is Havillina moving up the side of a hill.

You know, and it's several hundred yards away. He gets to looking at, he said it's not. He said what it turns out to be, and it looks like an older, Native American man and like two or three others, and they're making their way up this hill. They're wearing like clothing. They look like they have like skins on, all of this, but they're literally tiny. They're, you know, less than two foot tall as they're making their way through there. So he watches it, can't believe it.

Doesn't tell anybody. Still doesn't really bring it all up because he's like, look, the guys I hunt with, you know, you can't talk about this stuff. You know, they're going to just run him out of. They're like, what are you doing up here by yourself? You're just getting lit and then just going out on your own? you jump in there again, it's during spring turkey season. And he said he starts calling on these turkey.

They start making their way on there. He's trying to get where he can cut them off. So he hops off into this dried creek. And it's one of those ones, you know, when it floods out there, of course, there's water. And otherwise there's never water in it. So it's all sandy bottomed. He said he's down. And the reason he gets off in it's because it's lower than the ground so he can get down below the turkey ice at.

And then he can move up, try to get ahead of them, keep calling them into him. He works his way around. He said, the creek makes a big bend of the right. He says, as it makes a bend of the right, he kind of looks up. And at this point, he's probably less than 20 yards from like three of these little Native American guys standing there just on the lower edge of that creek looking right at him. He said, one of them was like carrying a rabbit. Looks like it's been killed. They got it all tied up and it's like slung over with the street. They've got their gear. They got stuff. He said one of them looks like it's wearing like the cap off of that spray paint can. and it's like tied up and hanging off of his belt.

Like, I don't know if they use it for a cup. I don't know what they use it for. He says he sees them and they freeze. And he goes, the look on their faces was they can't believe he sees them. It's almost a pure shock that, not that they got found, but that I can't believe he sees me. He said, he just freezes. He's in full camo, camo face mask. He's in everything, like just froze there.

He said the feeling that he got was it was so strange because it, was a warm feeling, but he said it was like looking at a very majestic, like, painting or to be in the presence of this. He said, it felt like it was old. Like what I'm in is something that's been here way longer of whatever this feeling is. He said, he just nodded at him and kept going, never paid any attention. He said, they watched him leave and then took off. That was like 2016, I think, 2017 right around there. I've spoken to him a few more times and he has never seen them since.

He was like that interaction was the last time that anything ever happened. So he'd had it spotted. He had talked to a few guys on there. I don't know that any of them ever came before. I don't think any of them ever had seen anything. They knew about missing stuff, could tell things that happened in and around their stuff.

But that was it. But he said after that point, nothing went missing. Nothing had, they never saw them. They never saw any. sign of them being on that place. Now, we also tying into that story, had another story of a fellow that was remodeling an old ranch house down not far from this area, probably within 50 miles or less of where this all took place. He said he goes in there one morning, way before daylight's in the

summer. They're going to get started at daylight because it's brutally hot. He goes in there. He said they were putting all their tools in five gallon buckets and just leaving them in there, whatever they chalk lines and all this stuff as they were framing and doing it. all this work. He said he goes in there and it's, you know, barely can see and the buckets had been turned over and stuff scattered everywhere. So he's like, well, I guess the Coons came in digging through stuff. Maybe somebody left something. And they got him. But he goes, he goes to look and notices there's stuff scuffling around inside there, goes out some of the, you know, where they hadn't put the windows in yet, jumps out the holes and takes off. At this point, he says he starts

seeing this chalk line of his. You can, not the same guy. This isn't the same dude that saw him the first time this is a different guy. He starts noticing this chalk line in there. He said, it's strung out in the mesquite trees and all that. He goes out there. There's three or four, again, two foot tall, what looked like natives or brownies or dwindies or however you want to describe them in this little mesquite flat, watching. And he said, they have been taking little things of theirs of whatever was in this bucket and spooked and ran off. He said, after that encounter, we never had anything else go missing, nothing else. We never saw another sign, whatever it is. So whatever's down in there. It's like the land that time forgot. And you can slip off down in there and sometimes get some of that. So yeah, that's one of my, I would have thought it was straight BS if I had not set there and had him tell me. It was one of those, like he didn't want to even talk about it. His wife's the one that forced it on him to talk about it. And then after that was that warm feeling, was the warm feeling that he had, was he peeing his pants? Because that's probably exactly what I would feel. Yeah, right? Probably.

100%. Yeah, it was a porta potty when you need it. Well, he's talking about it. He's not a romantic guy, right? Like, we're talking about it, dude that, you know, he's quite a, he's older, not a romantic dude. Like I said, no nonsense, straight, hard work, and dude. So when he started talking about having these feelings, it was very strange for him to be like, man, it felt like wholesome. It felt warm. Like, it felt in, like, this is the way things are. Like, it wasn't an eerie feeling, a negative feeling.

He was like, I felt honored to even be there to get to see this at the whole thing. And I said, so what did you do? Because he rides a bike. So he like rides his, I don't mean a motorcycle, a bicycle. So he like rides his bicycle down in there. So there's no smell. There's no sounds. You can slip around.

So he was slipping around like a ninja the whole time. Right. And that's what he was like, man, I didn't even what to do. He said, I nodded my head and took off. And just the way he talks about it, he was like, I didn't know any way to react. after it was all over. The funny part is after that encounter, he said he left, didn't even hunt the turkey, got back up, got on his stuff, went all the way back to the camper or back to the camp, started loading stuff up. He was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do next.

And that's why his wife was like, you're going to have to tell him because it kind of threw him for a curve. He's like, I don't have any idea what just happened. I love it. Of course you do. Of course you do. He just made Nate stay. Camp, Nate has this weird obsession with the little people. We talk about it on our show often.

Same. Yeah, same. I mean, and we know that homophoreensis is scientifically proven as a little person. Yeah. That, you know, that they found in Indonesia. I mean, it's proven that they've had that. And just like Tony and Luke were talking about with parallel dimensions and the missing 4-1 and stuff, a lot of the sightings of these little fay folk, it makes you wonder, are there parallel dimensions?

It's something that's bled through. Because oftentimes in these cases, the creatures are little things that are seeing these fay, these gnomes, whatever they look like, they seem shocked. Like, why can you see me? You're not supposed to be able to see me. And they're just as shocked as the person that witnesses it. And so it's like, what is that?

I mean, there's all kinds of cases from all over the UK, especially of people seeing these little gnomes, like in their gardens or sprites. They go by lots of different names, but it's only for a few seconds. Kyle, it's interesting, man. What you were saying about this reminds me of a story that we didn't do on the show. but I go fishing up in Fort Smith, Montana at a place called Refuge.

And near to that, there's a big ranch. And there's a bunch of really old, hardened cowboys that work this ranch out there. And they have stories of the Dwynday out there they see. And these are like, it would be to me the same thing you're describing this guy. These are like no nonsense, work their whole lives, work hard. But they have these stories that they're real reluctant to tell. But they've told some of the guides that, that, We work with them.

We go fly fish up there and said, there's these old boys up on the ranch. And they swear. You have to get them to talk about it. They won't talk about unless they know you. But we've hung with them a few times and they'll tell stories of these little people. And it is like a no nonsense. These guys aren't weaving tall tails to impress some fishing guides.

Like these guys are dead serious that there are things out there. And this is on like the crow nation land. So you have some sort of weird things. also happen on reservations, which... Yeah. We have several Duendi stories that come just like that. It's like New Mexico. Yeah, as I say, some cultures treated as like an omen.

I know this guy that was doing like seismic surveys in Arizona. They were on a reservation. And for whatever reason, they had a bunch of guys they had hired that were Brazilian. And they come running down the hill because they saw Duende and they quit and left the job site and never came back. Yeah. So to them, it was like, it's an omen. It's something that they don't want to mess with. It's a harbinger for something.

Bad's going to happen. Those guys said they thought it was a raccoon at first. During the day, walking on its back feet. What it was was a small duende or a little person, but it had like a rabbit or raccoon pelt that it was wearing. Had a little walking stick, the whole thing. These dudes like seven grown men blasted out of there. Gone.

Yeah. That's what I was going to say. So we were in Peru, and Luke and I took a trip to with podcast, some of our fans to Peru last summer. And we're coming out of Bojonté Tambo with some of those huge, massive stones and there's this marketplace and this guy has these little these little like gnome statues that he's selling

and Tim Albarino's with us and I'm like ask him in Spanish if he's seen these things and the guy then begins to tell a story he's like down to the years like 18 years ago I was up in the mountains here in Peru and I saw one and it was walking over the hill and they're real

and then he said the same thing he took off because it's a bad sign when you see one of these things good things do not happen so you don't want to, you don't want to interact with the little people. That's for sure. And it's funny how you can have these stories on these shows of giants, people running into giants and then people running these little tiny Native Americans. And it just makes you scratch your head of what's possible and what's out there. If a 400 pound, eight foot tall Harry Hominig can hide out there, I'm sure an 18 inch tall dwindie wouldn't have a real opportunity. Yeah. Those poor guys,

yeah, we've had people tell us that they've had stuff missing like in Cam's story, stuff around the house and if they started leaving little gifts, then like all the mischievous would go away. Like whatever it was or liquor, little things like that out for them to the offerings. Little shots of fireball. Yeah. I don't know if you want drunk dwindies.

There's problems already. You get them lit. That's all. It'd be like getting a toddler drunk. That's the worst idea. Then they just start multiplying. Then you have a bunch of them at your house. And then you got to deal with them.

And then the neighborhood has a problem. The H-O-A gets involved. Right, then they're throwing a party in jostletry. Yeah, exactly. Garage door comes up. They all take off. You got to try to round them up like you've heard them chickens. Next thing, you're head first in a porta potty in the fourth dimension.

And it's just a bad day. Yes, my feet. They're like, this is where we go. I bet you, Tony, you could start a business where you just get a flatbed trailer, put a porta potty on it, call it Porta Potty, just drive it around Tennessee. Portle Potty. Charge 10 bucks to go in and see what happens. I think y'all need to copyright the name Portal Potty right now.

I think that might be a plan. That's a good business plan right there. I think we start that up and see if it takes off. We can do a tour. Let's just do one at Squachella. It's like a special Port-a-Buyah. Make it a vendor truck. It's a texture made in the portal potty.

It's like those fortune things. You pay for the fortune, you get it. You go on the Port-a-potty and you get like some, you know, interdimensional message. You open the born soul tan's there. You come out with a keychain that's shaped like a turd. It's just the ring. That's with the lid. Thank you.

Everybody just serves the lid ring. And they've come to our brainstorming session. A portal potty. Tony, you should have them bring a porta potty for the stage and when you start your segment on the spot. Just come out of it. I'll wheel it out. Yes. And I don't know how to do it.

Is this Joshua? I'm scared. You guys are missing right now. And close it. And again, Tony comes out. But let's shift up north here to the, well, actually, I guess south, deep south in the floor. Deep south, baby. Yeah.

We got the Ninjas our butterflies. guys here. You guys are, tell us a little about yourself, how long you've been to podcast, how you got started, and sing us a song, dang it. Come on, that's what we came for. So, yeah, we're ninjas or butterflies. We're described ourselves as jack of all trades and masters of all of them.

Every single one. Yeah, we're very skilled in so many things. Everything we say is true. Everything we say is 100% true. Definitely not a joke. 80% of the time. No, we started this podcast. what, a year and a half ago? Fall of 2021, yeah.

We're about 90 episodes in now. Yeah, and we just started it because we wanted to start a podcast talking about whatever. That's why we named it Ninjas or Butterflies because it means absolutely nothing like our podcast.

It also means everything. And it does mean everything. Yeah. A lot of people. Yeah. No, we just... We talk about comedy, conspiracy, and that's the big thing

is we just try to find the funny in it. And so a lot of times there's, it's, we're not talking anything intergalactical or spiritual and it's just poop stories and talking about our everyday lives and what's happening in the news. And then suddenly, Josh is like, by the way, everything that you've ever known is wrong. And this is why. And there's a conspiracy that we just dive into. And so it's been really fun because like you said, like, we used to be able to have to go out and search a ton and Josh still does a lot of that studying. But a lot of it, we've been getting like, hey, recommendations from, you know, from a lot of people.

So that's the cool thing is I know that we're never going to run out of material. You guys have been doing it for 11 years. So I know that's got to be huge like a wonder like, man, what are we going to talk about on our thousands, thousands episode or whatever maybe? The physical weight to the hard drive. Yeah, exactly. No, but we have fun with it. I love, I'm obsessed with everything that doesn't make sense.

And that's why I love all of y'all's podcasts. and we steal a lot of material from you guys. And just we give like the Sparknote versions of all of your stories pretty much. Yeah, we take out all of the good stories anymore. No one knows the SparkNotes is. No one knows that is anymore. We're too old. It's just like a pay phone.

Sorry, Josh is 50 years old. I am. Yeah. I mean, but as far as stories go. Yeah. Yeah. But as far as stories go, we've had just so many, like special personal stories.

Like you've had UFO sightings. One of our favorite episodes is, me telling a ghost story that happened to me, but it was one of those things or a lot of the time, I just didn't think that door was ever even there. You know, that I didn't believe in ghosts, don't believe in aliens, that kind of things. But then

when certain things happened to you, obviously, right? You're like, man, the door that didn't even know existed just opened up and now I'm questioning everything. And so that was kind of my because I came from just like, I just want to have fun, I'll goof around and then we would just get into these stories. And then Josh be like, have you thought about this? And Andrew would be like, yeah,

but this has a certain meeting. And It's like just this domino effect of just deeper and deeper conspiracies or maybe different meanings that were just right in front of our faces the whole time. I don't know. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. I've seen what I know of two UFOs for sure. And the second time I peed all down my leg.

Yeah, we were outside of Murphy'sboro, Tennessee and a cabin. And just that night before, I had this weird interaction when I was just out. side and we're literally in rural. Like there's no neighbors. We are in the middle of the Tennessee wilderness. And I'm on the phone and I see like this weird black shadow thing. And I hear the, I'm on gravel and I hear the gravel,

start running towards me, is moving towards me. And it's louder and light, I look. All I see is this black figure and I'm like freaking out. And I get off the phone, I go inside. And then later that night,

Josh is at 2 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I was peeing off the front deck. And I felt like something, was watching me and I look and there was just this orb above the trees. I'm like, yo, what the heck? I'm like, is that a star?

Because it looks like it's like super close. All of a sudden, I just went like, and then it shot off over the horizon. And that's when I peed all on my leg and ran inside. And then he looked behind him and there was another light in the corner, but that was the Airbnb camera that was recording him apparently the whole time. So, like, sorry we pit off your deck, you know. Yeah, we can pick that.

You can see that video online now. It's fantastic. Yeah. Patreon, baby. Dude, I think my favorite story, though, that we've told is Andy, your ghost story. Because we were filming a Halloween episode, and Andy's always told this story where there's a voice recorded, and he always heard it like, my name's Keegan. As the story goes, it was a recorder that was in a room he walked into on a ghost tour.

This is very long story short, but he plays the recording on the podcast for the other guests who were listening. And it was the first time we had headphones on. and like listen to it. And I'm like, hold on. Being another guy, we looked at each other. We're like, that didn't say my name's Keegan. We're like, at the same time, what'd you hear?

We both said, Andy DeNoo. And so he's telling this ghost story with no idea that his name is in the recording. Yeah, because we've told the story like two, like for two or three years before that, when I moved down here. And when the recording came through, it was a really weird night. It kind of like opened, a doors for me. Like, you know, it was Halloween night. it was like super dumb of me to do this,

just to tag along on this ghost tour with my friend and, you know, looking back now. But when we've listened to the recording, he's like, hey, I have this and I think this is what it's saying. So in my mind, it's like, my name is Keegan. Like all these things were like, what does this ghost? Like, you know, this little girl Keegan, poor girl. And then so we've always told that story.

And then no joke, we had the one we've redid it on the podcast. We had people who had never heard the recording before. And so they're like, oh, wow. You know, they heard it. That's super scary. But then I'm like, wait, you guys are hearing something different. Yeah. They're like, no, we heard your name.

I'm like, no, no, no, there's no way. Do you have it? Yeah, I can find it. And then he plays it. And I think we both, you can see it. I'm so glad we were recording it because it was absolute. Genuine fear. Yeah, and his buddy that did this ghost tour thing, he's like a professional ghost hunter or something.

Amateur guy, yeah, but he just does it. He has all the proper equipment. He's had very little success, but. He wears like the jumpsuit with the backpack and the big gun that like. The story. Oh, wait. And you can change it out. Jeez.

Oh, that was not the voice. No. Okay. All right. Here he is. So when we hear that, we don't like that. Because I thought he said, my name is Kegam, but then if you listen to it again, I was just like, now, now my buddy can't on hear it either. Your name is Keegan.

So, so scary. It's so terrifying. But that's the thing is like, well, we can't explain that. Like, I can't. And so it's hard for me to wrap my mind around or still be in denial of like, you know, this certain spiritual realm not existing and, you know,

on earth as we play it up in movies and stuff like that. But I'm like, that felt very much like a horror movie and that felt very scary. So. Yeah. Just fun things like that. Lighthearted stuff. Just light work.

Did you notice any, uh, anything happening after that experience that you picked up that, that EVP and stuff? Did anything like, like they talk about hitchhiker effects and stuff like that? I mean, did you ever have any other experiences?

I don't know anything about a hitchhiker. Because he told me like you guys prayed and stuff like, hey, you don't have, or he's like, he's like, yeah, he has that. He had a whole protocol and I just thought it was so silly when I first got there because he would just talk to the house, talk to whoever's in it. I'm like, what is this? I love scary movies. I'm like, this is fun, whatever.

But at the very end, there's that prayer. It says, you do not have permission to leave with us. You know, like, this is something we're, you know, we're trying to help you. He's like, apparently he tried to go back there or something. And so I don't know. Yeah, there's nothing that I've seen afterwards, but it definitely has just changed my perspective to one, just respect that side of the unknown a little bit more.

And, you know, if you don't know much or you're not very well defended, you're just, you're setting yourself up for failure or for open attacks or something. And luckily, I feel like I'm not possessed, so that's good. Oh, hallelujah. Josh told me, you know, after that, you did get addicted to hitchhiking. And now he's usually seen. Yeah. It is weird.

do I do wake up in the woods covered in blood naked sometimes once there's a full moon. But I think that's just my medication. A great podcast idea where you just go out hitchhiking and then you record whatever happens and then you just put it out on the internet. This podcast is giving me so many good ideas. But, you know, just go out hitchhiking and record whatever the hell happens because I'm sure there's some weird stories are to be told and some weird places you'll be taken. I'd get murdered first episode.

Well, that was a short run. I guess, Luke, we can kind of dive into blur. Well, I want to ask the guys if dinosaurs are real. Is Helen Keller real? Is dinosaurs real? Did Bigfoot... And are they the same?

Or they're dead? Are they the same? And what portal did Helen Keller come out of? Yeah, that's a good question. Dinosaurs, yeah. I mean, we got gators down here, which are like literal dinosaurs. We got Sandhill cranes that are like six feet tall. You're little dinosaurs.

They're cackle like the loss of rapiders. Rapiders. Yeah. They got them blast rapiders down here. Yeah. Helen Keller, I don't think so. I don't think she was real. I believe more in dinosaurs I'm doing Helen Keller.

That's so sad. Isn't that so sad? I agree. I agree. All our minds are just working. Dude, I love your guys' show. Your show's so fun. It is.

God just cracks me up. Like the, I mean, you guys hit us out of left field when we came on with this. It's just a whole thing. I didn't even thought about it. And they were talking about... Luke, you froze, buddy. You're a complimenting guy.

Can you say it again? No one's let that actually that. No, please say it again. Yeah. But he's in a parallel dimension. It's okay. He's in the... The great thing is, with Riverside,

it wouldn't have come out as frozen at all. And so, like, the audience is going to be like, what do you guys mean he's frozen? We heard every word. Oh, really? Good. So, next time somebody freezes, we just keep nodding. yes yes like jack nicholson

he's like all kinds of about your mother he's just told you no idea so far boys I guess I guess we'll talk about ourselves our favorite our favorite topic we uh you know a blurry creature started

we've been we're going on four years now the I guess technically it started in 2019 in the fall of 2019 got the was like remodeling a house and just listening to weird stories like this. And, you know, not to go back to the hunters, but I had listened to, I don't know, seven or eight years and it was always the hunter's stories that really convinced

me. Something about, like, you know, like Cammy were talking about, you know, your buddy who's just this, he's not, he's not this kind of guy that makes up anything. He's almost too serious. And you, you hear about 50, 60 of those things and you're like, there's something to all of this paranormal realm, but the hunters and the cops and the military guys, they sort of are no non-sumstant. sense fellas. And then when they tell their story, I was like, we got to do something. So the logo was designed in 2019. And then I asked Luke, the summer of COVID, hey, Luke, you want to do this podcast about Bigfoot, but we're going to kind of go, we're also going to tie in like sort of this biblical worldview, biblical perspective of like, you know, how do you have faith and also hear all this

weird stuff and kind of tie the two together. And, you know, the Bible's full of stories about giants and all this other weird stuff that nobody wants to talk about at church, but we could talk about it on blurry creatures because it's just two dudes and no one's going to come after us and try to like kick us off the church council. We can get as weird as we want. That's right.

And we do. And that's when it starts. About four years into blurry creatures and we started talking about Bigfoot. And I'm sure you got your favorite story, Luke, that you've heard on blurry. But I'll tell my favorite story because about Sasquatch. We've heard some wild stuff.

like some people who supposedly go underground and work with the military. And, you know, some of those stories are hard to wrap your mind around. But my favorite Bigfoot story that we heard on the podcast was a guy came on the show. And he goes to, I think it was in South Carolina. He goes to camping at some Airbnb with his family. And he's into Sasquatch. He's thinking about it. His kids are, you know, they're listening to the podcast and they're like, they're into this creature.

Well, he's walking with his family along a trail one day, and they're just out doing their thing, looking for Bigfoot. Don't see anything. Don't have any experience. Come back home. They go into the cabin. And then he said he lays down in the cabin, small cabin. And all of a sudden, it like, you know, sort of later in the night, his whole visual senses get taken over. He's like, it's like I'm watching a movie in my mind.

but it's like I can't I can't get out of it I can't see anything in the room I can feel the room I can feel what's going on I know I'm still in the cabin but I'm watching a movie of me

and my family walking through the woods and I see this I see the viewpoint of a Sasquatch in the bushes watching me and my family walking

from earlier in the day so his whole take was this Sasquatch is watching him from the ridge knows he's looking they're they're looking for him but he's somehow managed to record this event with his family he said i could see all the details the trees i could see he was behind a bush and kind of going in and out and he projects it into my mind and then he walks he like leaves the cabin and then all of a sudden my senses come back and i'm back laying there

but for like a minute or two i'm re- i'm watching a rerun of my day before of this saskatch watch watching me. So he gets to see the viewpoint of the Sasquatch. I thought, you know, we've heard the stories of them taking, they can talk to you directly. They can mess with time and they seem to fade in and out, but a lot of mind speak happens where they can directly communicate with you and say things. But this was the first time I've heard like,

you get the old Sasquatch vision. The movie. The Wanka vision. But I don't know. I thought that was a wild one. I hadn't heard anything that crazy. But how about you, Luke? Yeah. The one that comes to mind is

the Roger episode only because it does have a Sasquatch element. And we've gotten into this, as Nate said, we started this thing talking about Bigfoot, and then we started getting the Giants, I think episode 11 of our show and we're, you know, four years into this now. But we had this episode where a guy dug up

giant bones on his property. Old Minnesota farmer. Like Salt Deer didn't even have like a cell phone. I think he had to call him on a landline. Like, this guy didn't have a computer. He was, like, super believable to this point. So we go through this episode talking about him digging up giant bones in a mound on his property. He has a farm in Minnesota.

He says his wife won't come up there because it's scary and weird there now. And this episode was like the turning point for me in our show because we're kind of wrapping up his story about the giant bones and the government coming out and tell him to refill it in. it's part of the Native American repatriation act, whatever, never say that where you can't dig in it anymore, even though it's on his property. He claims he found giant bones in there.

And we remembered at the end to ask him about Bigfoot because we were like, that's how we usually start all of our shows, is what are your thoughts on Bigfoot? And so we're like, hey, by the way, Roger, we meant to ask at the beginning, sorry about this.

You know, what are your thoughts on Bigfoot? And he's like, well, you know, I got three, they come up to the barn. He's like, they braid my horse's hair. And I have names. him. And he goes, he starts that he's named these three Bigfoot and then he goes out there and he plays his Native American

flute for him. And that, and then it goes in, it takes the hardest right turn of all time. He starts talking about how the Bigfoot are actually on this serpent mound on his property. He dug into and found the giant bones. There's actually a portal on the egg that's in the serpent's

mouth. And out of this portal comes something called a boer crock. Never heard it before. We looked it up. And this is actually like an Egyptian kind of hybrid creature that they believed in, which was like part boar and part crock. I was like a man bear pig there. It was like half boar, half crock, half man. You know, it's like man bear a pig. But they said it comes out there and it was attacking things.

And so the Bigfoot, which you called the other rice lakers, there's three. It was nature of their names. It was white diamond and becca. White diamond. And little one. And they would protect, they were protecting his farm from these borkers. Crocks. And there was a dog man in his driveway as well. There was a dog man, but he had the whole of it just, it's, it's unbelievable, right?

Yeah, but the thing is, though, you have this like old salty, crusty farmer from Minnesota, and he's like, this is what happens in my property. My wife won't come up here and my neighbor seen Thunderbirds. And he's like, you know, we've got a serpent mound and giant bones. And by the way, these three bigfoot, they come up and they braid my horse's hair and I play flute music for him. And you're just like. My favorite part of that story.

he's in the barn he said he's in his barn and he's like well I just had to tell him the gospel I had to witness he preaches to the saskwashed preachers to the saskwash and I just you know we are so early this like episode 30 something we're like somebody has to somebody somebody's got to tell him about the Lord you know sorry I was late I was having communion with satsquatch just right you know it was so wild and he was so matter of fact about these things and it

took it's a hard turn it's like it's one of the more unforgettable now we've talked about all kinds of crazy stuff on the show you know as well as most you guys have you know everything from satanic ritual abuse and um just wild stuff portals and pantries we had an episode with a portal in a pantry not a porta potty um deep underground military bases and aliens and all and so you you you kind of get there's this level i think we level up into this weirdness to sort of becomes status quo, right? But that was really like the turning point where you're like, dude, this is so weird. And he is so matter of fact, like some dude you would see like at the co-op, like, you know, buying

seed for the farm. And this guy's telling you these, doesn't have a computer. Some of these wild stories about Borkrocks and portals and Bigfoot and this intergalactic battle that's happening on his property where he found giant bones. And so wildest, it's it's there, it's up there. But it was just, I always kind of go back to that one because it was so like it, it hit you at a left field when we thought we were rapping the episode. And he's like, oh, by the way, I got more for you. And here's what happened. You're like, dude, this is you don't stop talking. This is yeah. Can I add a follow up question? Right. Exactly. What the heck are you talking about?

So that that's the one I go to. Yeah. I'll tell you, the braiding hair thing is something I heard years ago by, who was it? Nate, you might know the guy, Coombo Baker. I don't know. No? So Coombo years ago came out talking about how he came across cases with Bigfoot where people were having big, maybe it was his horses. I don't know, but the idea of braiding the main, the hair on the horse, the other side.

of that story, the other half of that that you guys didn't get that I was told years ago is that they do that while they're doing the freaky with the horse. Oh, yeah. This family show just leveled up to PG-13. I've heard the little people

do it and they ride the horses at night. They take them out and they ride around and they put their hair. It's not the Sasquatch. That's what I've heard. Did he see the Sasquatch doing it? No, I I don't think so. Because, I mean, he had so many other weird things happening on that property that maybe

was a little people. Maybe he just didn't share that with us. He was holding some things back. Yeah, maybe that's how we get. There's a lot of things you can't unsee. And that would be one of them. I'm a very visual person and I'm not liking this podcast right now. I can't unsee it, but I can never talk of it again.

We did have a centaur story on the show. Maybe that's how we got the centaur, the man bear picture. This is a funny email we got. This guy was talking about how back in the, it was like, like the early, It's like 1920. I met 1910 somewhere in there. He said his grandpa was a very serious guy who said that they would, they were on their farm at night.

He had like a huge family, a bunch of people, three generations of people out on the front porch in the middle. You just, you know, it's hot. They sat outside. They said, sure enough, this thing comes running down their driveway. And we probably emailed this guy a couple times. And it stops. And everyone sees it.

And they all look. and at the end of their driveway is no joke, a centaur. And it looks at them, and then they all look at it, and then it takes off into the bushes. And his grandpa used to tell the story at like family gatherings for years that they saw one of these things. And it's like straight out of Narnia, right? And Luke and I were early in our show going,

I mean, are people just messing with us? And we emailed the guy back. He's like, no, I swear, I promise. My grandpa told the story like, all the time. His whole family saw it. And I think he was the youngest. And the crazy thing was a reverse centaur. So it was no pants and just a horse head.

Terrified. Everybody's way more terrifying, actually. That's part of these shows is who do you believe and why do you believe them? And I guess maybe everyone can go around and just kind of maybe wrap it up. What was your mindset before you started your podcast and what is it now? I think it would be a good like wrap up sort of discussion. Why do I feel like everybody's waiting for me to say something?

No, you know, I'll go for, I'll go first. Come on, Tony. Let me go quickly here because I think this is fascinating. For me, I've always been the skeptic on our show with Nate because Nate talked about the top of it. He had this 10,000 hours of listening to Bigfoot shows while he was remodeling houses. And so he just, and I've always had a mild interest,

being mild and moderate interest in Bigfoot. And so I just thought it'd be fun. to talk about these things that are weird. You know, it's, it is fun, right? It's fascinating to think about and, and sort of investigate and have discourse around things that don't have real solid answers and just try to figure it out. And that's what we've been trying to do, get better answers to maybe unanswerable questions. But doing that all through a biblical worldview and through a biblical lens is really where our show lives.

And what, I was very anti-having an alien discussion just at the beginning. I was like, I don't want to talk about this is stupid. The same thing is all stupid. I don't want to talk about it. And for me, I think we had enough guests on that we're giving compelling sort of paradigms for understanding this and framing the alien phenomena and kind of looking at what the narrative is that's out there versus what the Bible has to say about stuff like that, with what it was an extraterrestrial. You know, by definition, angels are extraterrestrial. They're not of earth. and we are.

And so sort of changing the way I was to think about and discuss this thing. I found space within my expanded paradigm to discuss these, to discuss it. And I was very much not in that space.

I remember telling Nate, I don't want to have an alien show. Let's not do this. This is dumb. We lose all, if we had any credibility to start out with, we're about to lose it.

But we always say our shows a Journey podcast and we do start Bigfoot and these experts in Bigfoot, and we've journeyed down into all the things that we just sort of talked about. And to, Dr. Michael Heiser said on our show,

who was just really one of the, in our minds, Nate and my mind, I won't speak for Nate, but in our minds, it was, he's really, he's really a cornerstone

to these conversations as a Christian. He wrote the book, The Unseen Realm. And he said that if just one of these accounts are true, that we listen to and talk about, If it's just one is true, then it breaks the paradigm. You have to expand your paradigm to encompass these things, right? So if just one day foot sighting is real, you know, just one of these alien encounters is real.

And just one out of the thousands and thousands of happen, then we've got to figure out how we fit this inside our worldview. And for me, that actually happened. And, you know, we lost Mike last year. And he was just, he became a great friend. But I think he was, he was revolutionary in the way he compiled and put things out there. And when he said those things to us, it really changed the way I thought. about those things. For me personally, the journey has really been like spending my paradigm to consider. And I think having these conversations around the weird things in the Bible and the

weird things people experience is something that's missing. This discourse is missing. Not in this circle right here by any means, but just in Christendom in general. And I think we do ourselves a great disservice if we don't talk about the weird stuff and try to contextualize that from the point of view of our faith. If we don't do that, then I always say this, the world's more than willing to disciple us and what they want us to believe, what the world wants us to believe about these things. And that is always going to be contrary to the truth, the biblical truths and what the Bible says. And so that journey has been wild to me, like, just kind of flipping that switch on and saying, I can consider this, and I do now.

And I have a good, I have a good answer, I think, for what's happening here. Now, are we going to know? Maybe not until we have disclosure, but we're getting very close to that. So for me, that was, that's been the journey sort of around our content. You get the Alien Award. Thanks, I'll take it. Give me an iced out chain, baby. What about you, Tony? When I first started, for me, the way the podcast started, I was a tractor-trailer driver,

and God called me to do this podcast, and I've told the story before, but I won't go deep into it, but just, it wasn't my comfort zone. I mean, I was literally driving my truck. I felt the Holy Spirit say, you're going to be a podcast, you're going to work with Westcomer from Sasquatch Chronicles, never talked to the guy my entire life. And a month later, he's calling me. And that launched the podcast. And it was a big growing experience for me because, you know, up to that point, I was interested in a big foot topic, listened to West's show, really looked around online about it. But outside of the topic, I really didn't talk about a whole lot of the stuff.

really that interested. And I felt a strong pull to start a show where you talk about everything. And that was very uncomfortable for me. I didn't know what to talk about. Like, I remember my first UFO show was in the first five episodes. This guy, Roger was on. And he was talking about this up-close encounter that he had of a UFO. I mean, like, it's huge. It was right there. And I'm just like, What the heck am I? What am I do? Like what? And then so there's this whole inner struggle because I knew how the podcast started. So I had this like I put this pressure on myself of making sure I don't let God down and take this show in a direction. It wasn't meant to go. And I didn't know what that direction was supposed to be. And kind of like what you said, it was the show, I've come to understand that the show is about people's experiences, but it's also about my journey through these topics. for seven years, you know, 650 episodes, you get to hear the transition of my mindset where first episode was Farmer C's Two Sasquatch in a field. And it was just me talking to this guy in Pennsylvania to now we're talking about porta potty's and like, you know, other realms and stuff.

And it's like, how did you get there? And it was a slow trickle effect of me being exposed to people's experiences and finding that, you know, some of these wilds, experiences have been able to be verifiable. And that shapes your mindset. And you have to take that into consideration. And for me, like when I first started the show, you know, my first email, the first email I ever got was a woman saying she saw Slender Man, never brought her on the show because I wasn't ready for it.

If somebody emailed me now and said, I saw Slenderman, let's go. Toppa, baby, let's do this. And, like, you know, but people would email about, their dreams. And early in those days, I was like, why don't I want to talk to you about your dreams? I have dreams too. There's nothing weird about that. I never, I never, in those days, looked at everything the way I look at it now. And now I'm like, you dope? Like, the whole scripture is riddled with dreams and dream interpretation and God speaking to people with their dreams. Like, of course, the dream state is something to be thought about and talked about. And then when you start talking to

people about the dream state and then you start learning about lucid dreaming. Well, what is lucid dreaming? Because I've never experienced that, but they're saying that this is a dream that they had that was more real than here. And the things that happened there seem to overlap here. And then you start talking to people who had experience with other people in their dreams. And then in this reality, they share notes and say, yeah, I saw you my dream last night too. And yeah, that room. Yeah, I saw, yeah. And it's like, well, what is that? You know? And so it just takes you down this whole road. that again, you guys started a show and you're like, let's talk about Bigfoot. And it's like, oh, that's like, like, Bigfoot is just a topic now that we do.

And it all just was like this domino effect. So like for me, it was just this, I feel like it's a personal journey as well. I look at my show as, it's like a mixed bag. And I'm fairly convinced that reality is far more stranger than I can fathom. And, you know, I'm just, I'm here for the. ride, you know, and I don't really, uh, I also struggled early on. I'm like, you know, I felt this like almost wait, like, well, I'm the host of the show. Like I don't want to, like you're talking about validation and, you know, it hurt and your credibility and stuff. And I was just like, you know,

if I bring this person on, if I talk about this, like, what is that going to do to the show? Am I going to ruin the show? And I just got to the point where I'm like, you know what? Just like with people's salvation, like, it's not my job to make you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior. That's not my job. My job is to lead you to the water. It's between you and the Holy Spirit. My job's done. And so I look at it the same way at the show where it's like, you know, I present the stories of people's experiences that they've gone through.

I've personally experienced things that I can't explain that people who call me crazy for. I've talked to people on the show that it shared their personal experiences that I've been able to verify that if I couldn't have verified, I'm like, I don't know. So I'm at the point where it's just like, listen, we present the story to you as the audience is your decision to choose what you want to believe. It's my personal journey, but it's the audience as well. It's their personal journey through the weird.

And that's just kind of where I leave it at. Yeah. Yeah, I think I agree with like Tony's saying is like we've experienced a similar thing where I thought we would learn more over time. But I have actually, I've got more questions now than when we started 10 years ago. And like Tony was saying, we present these stories for the audience to listen to. It's up to then the judge what they think about it because we get people, you know, the email and be like, well, how do you vet these stories or that guy's story was impossible? And I'm like, look, it's impossible for me to say that he did or didn't experience what

he experienced. That's ridiculous to me. And whether somebody physically saw a biological Sasquatch or it was just a mirage or a hallucination, whatever it was, the effect, the impact it has on that person is exactly the same. It's changed their life forever. So I've got people that have come to us on air, Fair, people that didn't even know we did a show that have told us these stories. And you can tell, man, they have no reason to make this stuff up.

I used to haul hay for an old rancher when I was a kid. I did it. I know my whole life. And after he heard about our show, he pulled me aside one day and said that he saw a Sasquatch on his ranch 30 years ago. And I was like, well, how can you never told me that the whole time when I was hauling hay for you? And there would be no reason for this guy to make that story up.

And with all the crazy stories that we talk about from portals to Duendys to Sasquatch, extraterrestrials, whatever, time slips, I can't tell you the amount of people that have emailed us and thanked us for bringing these stories to light because they thought that they had a weird, wild experience. And they never told nobody because they thought they were the only one. And they were afraid that they were losing their minds. But through podcasts, like all of these, all you guys shows as well is like it makes people more comfortable. and then it takes the pressure off them. They're like, man, maybe I'm not crazy. Turns out, over 100 people have seen this glimmer man.

You know, I thought I was the only one. And so it's helped people out. You don't realize when you're joking around, jackassing around with your friend on a podcast, that somebody, you're actually helping them. Like, I was really depressed or whatever, and they'll ride in. Like, you guys literally changed the way I was thinking. You brought me out of the slump I was in. And I can't thank you enough.

And, you know, that kind of stuff, I never crosses my mind when we're in here. just goofing off. But I think that the shared experience, I think everybody, no matter who you are, likes to sit around a campfire and hear crazy stories. That's what I think.

And it's not my job to prove whether they're real or not. I don't think you ever will. Like, we always joke about with Bigfoot. I hope it's not discovered because then that ends all the fun. The fun is the mystery.

It's like when they show the aliens and signs and they ruin the whole movie. I'm not kidding. I'm going to die on that hill. I'm going to die on that hill. If they'd just not shown you the aliens and signs, it would have been so much scarier. I loved that movie.

I don't know what you're talking about. Also, their one weakness is water, and they went to a planet with two-thirds of water. I mean, come on. It's water from the beginning. I talk about higher intelligence, right? Yeah. A bunch of dummies flying right home.

Yeah, ours is very similar to y'all's where we just started this podcast just for fun, because before this, we've been doing content, or I've been doing content for Sunday cool, seven years now, I think. And just doing like funny skit videos for like churches and youth groups and stuff like that. And then when Andrew came on, was it two years now or three?

Yeah. We just start having the funnest conversations of like what we saw on the internet or TikTok or like whatever. And it's like, yeah, dude, we really need to start a podcast. And we didn't know what we were doing or which way it was going to go. definitely didn't expect it to be where it is now. But our prayer the whole time is just God use the podcast however you want in the moment it becomes about us. Just take it away. And he uses us dummies that talk about our favorite poop stories and peeing on our legs when we see a UFO.

And we get just so many emails and messages of people like, what you guys are doing is so rad. And like, I've opened up my Bible for the first time in 10 years or whatever just because we talk about scripture a lot and like how it relates to everything. And we're very not educated in anything. But everything. But everything. Yes. But yeah, we just have fun with it. And I feel like now what the podcast is done, it's like I feel like I've taken the red pill from the Matrix.

I just see like everything like way differently now. Yeah. You know, like, but it's like, I mean, from a young age, I always knew that there was something. more like in the spiritual realm and stuff just because I've had encounters at a young age. But now with this journey we've been on with like listening to you guys and stuff, it's like it's just clarifying everything. You know, it's like, oh yeah, I'm not crazy for experiencing this or thinking this. We're just talking about it.

I think that's one of the biggest thing is my confidence has changed of like, okay, it's okay to talk about this. It's okay to question this. It's okay to make a joke out of this. Like, because at the beginning, I'm like, I don't know if people are going to really like it. Just listening to us talking about whatever because we're not experts in it. But I think that's the coolest thing is seeing a community build around what we're doing and like be all in and be super excited and CSS friends and say, you should talk about this next. And then we do.

And then we, it just builds a community where it's like, listen, I'm not the only crazy person that's talking about this. All right. We got tons of other people that, you know, are asking questions or looking into it. So it's just been a really cool thing just to see how. our minds have just been a little more open, but also just more firm on whenever it leads back to spiritual stuff. It's always like it's just cementing our faith even more.

We're like, golly, he's still in control. And he's doing all these things. Yeah, we've definitely found a genre of people that it's really cool of how our podcast works. It's like we talk about, we can talk about like really deep, heavy stuff, but it's like all packaged within like a humor-based thing.

So it's like we don't take ourselves that seriously, but like it definitely, I don't know, eases the tension of, I don't know. Oh, just the heavy topics. Yeah. And it's, it cuts it all off. It's fun how we're all evolving, too. It's like, you know, you guys, it started with all jokes. And now you're like buying in. and now you're like educating your audience. I started out a complete skeptic. Like, I never studied anything about the book of Enoch when I went to Bible college. And Josh starts talking about it. I'm like, okay, guy. But, you know, then you came from a good perspective, too, because not usually the perspective you would want, but like you didn't have no podcasting.

Or like listen. So it's like, yeah, yeah. So to all be on a different journey, different path and all of us like coming together and asking tough questions, it's just been super fun. And finding the funny is the most, that's the most important thing for me. It's like, because I know we all work better, especially me and Josh, like when we get in that goofy state, that's where we thrive. And so that the able, that, the fact that we're able to throw in all this heavy spiritual

interdimensional stuff with red heifers and all that stuff. It's just cool to be able to joke about it and for another episode. Do you know 9-11 was an inside job? See you next week. Cliffanger. I agree. I think that

you start these podcasts. I think for me it was a moment when we were in I was talking about our story of going to Peru but we were standing at Soxaywoman. It's looking at these giant lithic stones that are like, you know, perfectly smooth on eight sides fit together like Legos. And you're standing at this wall that's towering over all of us. You're like, this is massive. Like how did they move these stones? Some of these stones are so huge. And I think it's one thing to

talk about stories and it's another thing to stand there and stare at it and touch it and be like, how did they build this? You know? And one of the things we've talked a lot about is the megaliths and sort of this ancient construction, this knowledge that they built these things all over the world. And then when you actually get to go to one, and it was kind of cool that our fans rallied around us and Luke and I got to go to this place and basically hang out. We did a live podcast where we're walking around. And being in downtown Kusko and touching these like green stones that are just look like marshmallows fit together. And they've been there for, you know, thousands of years. And you're like, this is, one of them was 12 sides. And like, how did they do this? And it feels like,

you know, when you, you grow up in the church and a lot of us have, you hear these stories of giants, David and Goliath, and you don't really understand. That's like a little snapshot of like a whole narrative that has sort of been brushed over. Like there were giants and they were killing them and they were exterminating them. And then you see things that maybe they built. And then you start to reverse engineering that. Like, okay, these, these stones look like they were lifted or levitated in the place, shaped in the air, or whatever, they were heated up or they were, however they did it, there was some advanced knowledge. And I think then you have to sort of reverse it. Like at some point, you know, the whole giant narrative for me has changed

that there were angels are probably like a physical being, not a spiritual being, an actual physical being. They just not here. And I think that I've changed my perspective because you grow up in the church. Everything that you don't understand is just, it's just mystical. It just floats around. There's no, but it's like, no, they're, they birthed, they got, they hooked up with women and they birth these giants that, that, and there's remnants all over the world. And I think the physical aspect of these things that you read about in ancient history and all the mythologies around the world and every single culture's, you know, their story, they all kind of tell the same story. They talk about a flood. They talk about giants. They talk about these weird

things. And, and, you know, growing up in the church, it was like, okay, so maybe angels aren't spiritual beings. Maybe they're like upgraded humans and they came down here and messed with everything. You know, like, why is, why do we over-complicate things? Like, so I think that's the mind shift that I had because I never really understood. What is an angel?

You hear stories of angel. People, I was driving my car and all of a sudden this angel saved me. I got in this car wreck or I showed up and, you know, people have these encounters with angels and you hear about them all the time. And you're like, what are they? you know. They made a movie about that.

They played baseball, didn't they? Yeah. How many eyes do they have? They only played outfield, though. They weren't infielders. They weren't that good. But you're just like putting it like sort of a, you know, Angel could roll into town today, hang out, have dinner with him and have some questions. And then he could leave.

And they're like, well, people say all the time, like, oh, well, angels can take on the form of anything. And I'm like, I don't think so. So that's where my mind has changed. I think their resting state is something that's like a human. It's not just spirit. So when you say spirits, it's just not a spirit, not just a spirit. There are spirits, but I think that there are. Just to clarify, the spiritual gets a little muddy.

They live in another dimension. Another dimension. But anyway, this is kind of a taste. I just want to say thanks to all you guys for wanting to do this Squachella Festival. If you want to, I guess we can all pitch this event right now. like this is happening in at belmont university at their fisher center which is like an 85 million building it's it's awesome i think you're short like a hundred million on that i think it's a hundred eighty five million dollars we're getting 85 million dollars we're getting 85 million dollars i don't

think it's 180 billion with a b it's point five trillion it's but anyway it's it's too well inflation it's now trillions that's right it's a trillion dollar building and uh come on down no but we're uh We're going to do this live on stage. Everyone's going to have sort of a topic, and we're going to, just like your typical music festival, we're going to shotgun blast you back to back to back to back to back to back all day long with,

you know, all the weirdness. And it's called Squachella. You can get tickets now at Squachella.com. And, yeah, we're really pumped that all you guys are, we all do something different. We all have a different vibe. and it's cool to see, you know, some sort of weird idea kind of come to reality, and here we are. So I don't know if you guys, I don't know if you guys want to tease anything else, but no, it's going to be rad.

It's going to be so fun. I'm stoked. There's better enough song. Andy's going to do the whole show without a shirt. Absolutely. That's like, yeah. You got a Squathella banana hammock that's pre-ordered right now. And the tickets just sold out.

Yeah. There we go. And they're gone. cheering the most because you know they have some intimate camping situations between the two of them but uh we are we also have a

VIP ticket we can talk about that there are there's a limited amount of VIP tickets we're going to have a a section there where you can come backstage hang out with us we're going to do Q&A take pictures you can get some sign posters and it's going to be a good time so and the VIP includes Andy washing every single person's foot

yes sponge baths yeah Yeah. And I will come to you. Those feet. I will go to your residence. Yes. So it'll be a long night, but I'll be there. His wake up. Your feet's just being wet in the world. What's it? Go to sleep. Just like Jason, man. Wash and feet. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate you guys. August 3rd, right?

Yeah, thank you, Thomas 3rd. Yes. Mark it on your calendars. August 3rd, Nashville, Tennessee. I'll make sure I'm there. Yeah, make sure you guys are all there in this in this virtual room. But join us. It's going to be fun. It's going to be like a music festival with podcasts. You get to see your favorite podcast live, do their thing.

And maybe you'll see Andy's feet. We can't say that's for sure, but that may be the special guest. No, it's guaranteed. It's guaranteed. It'll be very, very aware, very apparent. Actually, probably the first thing you smell all over here. See when you walk in. No, it's amazing.

Like, who and I went to a movie premiere the other day? And it's an amazing building, awesome facility, theater style. everything's just incredible. It's funny that the juxtaposition of a bunch of dudes talking about Sasquash in this building will be hilarious on its own. And it's like one of the nicest buildings in Tennessee. Can't believe we get to have this event. We're degrading it. Yeah, we are degrading it.

And they're letting all of us into it. I've heard they're giving us honorary PhDs too. Belmont is. That's pretty great. In Sasquology. Come on down. There's going to be a VIP hanging out. There's going to be merch booths, photos.

Tony's bringing a portal potty. We got a huge electronic wall. There's going to be videos. There's going to be just an amazing staff. Fire. It will be fire. We'll tell you when. These guys are bringing live gators.

That's right. It's going to happen. Borgrocks. Squachella. Perhaps. Yeah, and get your tickets now because they're going to go quick. Absolutely. They will.

Awakened from the forest in the depths of the abyss. This creature is a paradigm of time lost and time itself. It fears no one. It adheres to no rule that man can create. It forges its own path, and yet its path remains hidden from the world. The sphere of his existence is beyond most comprehension, as it exudes its power quietly, but transcendent. It needs no one's approval to exist, but yet its very existence. Resistance is sought after by many.

It watches. It learns. Adapt to the ever-changing environment around it, even as the environment is wrought with corruption. It battles the corruption only when pressed or for the protection of others like it. It is a mirage that few will ever understand. It's a cornucopia of knowledge from an era, long past.

It's free. It's Bigfoot. My fantasy's always consisted of making it big. My soul was nothing more than a bargaining chip. Marketing is what they tell you to do and what you're willing to give. Larkin to the fullest extent. I don't wait. I shoot first like high on a roadian.

And people don't understand me like reading a nocian. Stretch thin. Like pulling an accordion. My heart ain't. The story is lying aside. Everything is medicalized. Politicians selling the ride. I bet him would die where the relevance lies.

They're dressing alike. Reptillions. My resilient.